HAUS FÜR POESIE

The poems are set in remote landscapes marked by traces of displacement, homelessness, and violence: such as the Scottish Highlands and islands, after being forcibly cleared more than two hundred years ago, or the sparsely populated karst region of northern Italy, where men return to their wives only in the summer. Each poem is accompanied by an appendix titled “Balkanroute,” which further condenses the network of literary and mythological motifs that run through the volume in ever new variations, while also linking them to contemporary movements of flight. One recurring motif, for example, is birds – birds that carry the souls of the dead beneath their wings as they cross borders; birds whose tongues are cut out; women who transform into birds, like the sisters Philomela and Procne. Rather than their precise geographical setting, the poems are concerned with a broader reflection on the historical and cultural traces that emerge in the human-shaped “Gelände,” and with the “nimmerstatt,” the realm of in-between spaces and points of flight.

Esther Kinsky in conversation with Nico Bleutge

The event will be held in German without interpretation.

Funded by: Suhrkamp Verlag